Nae-Eung Lee

Flexible and Stretchable Physical Sensor Integrated Platforms for Wearable Human‐Activity Monitoringand Personal Healthcare

Flexible and stretchable physical sensors that can measure and quantify electrical signals generated by human activities are attracting a great deal of attention as they have unique characteristics, such as ultrathinness, low modulus, light weight, high flexibility, and stretchability. These flexible and stretchable physical sensors conformally attached on the surface of organs or skin can provide a new opportunity for human-activity monitoring and personal healthcare. Consequently, in recent years there has been considerable research effort devoted to the development of flexible and stretchable physical sensors to fulfill the requirements of future technology, and much progress has been achieved. Here, the most recent developments of flexible and stretchable physical sensors are described, including temperature, pressure, and strain sensors, and flexible and stretchable sensor-integrated platforms. The latest successful examples of flexible and stretchable physical sensors for the detection of temperature, pressure, and strain, as well as their novel structures, technological innovations, and challenges, are reviewed first. In the next section, recent progress regarding sensor-integrated wearable platforms is overviewed in detail. Some of the latest achievements regarding self-powered sensor-integrated wearable platform technologies are also reviewed. Further research direction and challenges are also proposed to develop a fully sensor-integrated wearable platform for monitoring human activity and personal healthcare in the near future.

Stretchable, Transparent, Ultrasensitive, and Patchable Strain Sensor for Human–Machine Interfaces Comprising a Nanohybrid of Carbon Nanotubes and Conductive Elastomers

UNLABELLED Interactivity between humans and smart systems, including wearable, body-attachable, or implantable platforms, can be enhanced by realization of multifunctional human-machine interfaces, where a variety of sensors collect information about the surrounding environment, intentions, or physiological conditions of the human to which they are attached. Here, we describe a stretchable, transparent, ultrasensitive, and patchable strain sensor that is made of a novel sandwich-like stacked piezoresisitive nanohybrid film of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and a conductive elastomeric composite of polyurethane (PU)-poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrenesulfonate ( PEDOT PSS). This sensor, which can detect small strains on human skin, was created using environmentally benign water-based solution processing. We attributed the tunability of strain sensitivity (i.e., gauge factor), stability, and optical transparency to enhanced formation of percolating networks between conductive SWCNTs and PEDOT phases at interfaces in the stacked PU-PEDOT:PSS/SWCNT/PU-PEDOT:PSS structure. The mechanical stability, high stretchability of up to 100%, optical transparency of 62%, and gauge factor of 62 suggested that when attached to the skin of the face, this sensor would be able to detect small strains induced by emotional expressions such as laughing and crying, as well as eye movement, and we confirmed this experimentally.

A Flexible Bimodal Sensor Array for Simultaneous Sensing of Pressure and Temperature

Diverse signals generated from the sensing elements embedded in flexible electronic skins (e-skins) are typically interfered by strain energy generated through processes such as touching, bending, stretching or twisting. Herein, we demonstrate a flexible bimodal sensor that can separate a target signal from the signal by mechanical strain through the integration of a multi-stimuli responsive gate dielectric and semiconductor channel into the single field-effect transistor (FET) platform.

Transparent Stretchable Self-Powered Patchable Sensor Platform with Ultrasensitive Recognition of Human Activities

Monitoring of human activities can provide clinically relevant information pertaining to disease diagnostics, preventive medicine, care for patients with chronic diseases, rehabilitation, and prosthetics. The recognition of strains on human skin, induced by subtle movements of muscles in the internal organs, such as the esophagus and trachea, and the motion of joints, was demonstrated using a self-powered patchable strain sensor platform, composed on multifunctional nanocomposites of low-density silver nanowires with a conductive elastomer of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrenesulfonate/polyurethane, with high sensitivity, stretchability, and optical transparency. The ultra-low-power consumption of the sensor, integrated with both a supercapacitor and a triboelectric nanogenerator into a single transparent stretchable platform based on the same nanocomposites, results in a self-powered monitoring system for skin strain. The capability of the sensor to recognize a wide range of strain on skin has the potential for use in new areas of invisible stretchable electronics for human monitoring. A new type of transparent, stretchable, and ultrasensitive strain sensor based on a AgNW/PEDOT:PSS/PU nanocomposite was developed. The concept of a self-powered patchable sensor system integrated with a supercapacitor and a triboelectric nanogenerator that can be used universally as an autonomous invisible sensor system was used to detect the wide range of strain on human skin.

Amine-modified single-walled carbon nanotubes protect neurons from injury in a rat stroke model

Stroke results in the disruption of tissue architecture and is the third leading cause of death in the United States. Transplanting scaffolds containing stem cells into the injured areas of the brain has been proposed as a treatment strategy, and carbon nanotubes show promise in this regard, with positive outcomes when used as scaffolds in neural cells and brain tissues. Here, we show that pretreating rats with amine-modified single-walled carbon nanotubes can protect neurons and enhance the recovery of behavioural functions in rats with induced stroke. Treated rats showed less tissue damage than controls and took longer to fall from a rotating rod, suggesting better motor functions after injury. Low levels of apoptotic, angiogenic and inflammation markers indicated that amine-modified single-walled carbon nanotubes protected the brains of treated rats from ischaemic injury.

An All-Elastomeric Transparent and Stretchable Temperature Sensor for Body-Attachable Wearable Electronics.

A transparent stretchable (TS) gated sensor array with high optical transparency, conformality, and high stretchability of up to 70% is demonstrated. The TS-gated sensor array has high responsivity to temperature changes in objects and human skin. This unprecedented TS-gated sensor array, as well as the integrated platform of the TS-gated sensor with a transparent and stretchable strain sensor, show great potential for application to wearable skin electronics for recognition of human activity.

Highly sensitive stretchable transparent piezoelectric nanogenerators

Here we report a new type of stretchable transparent piezoelectric nanogenerator (NG) using an organic piezoelectric material consisting of poly(vinylidene fluoride trifluoroethylene) [P(VDF-TrFE)] sandwiched with mobility-modified chemical vapor deposition-grown graphene electrodes by ferroelectric polarization into P(VDF-TrFE). This new type of NG has a very high sensitivity and mechanical durability with fully flexible, rollable, stretchable, foldable, and twistable properties. We also investigated the mobility-modified graphene electrodes with ferroelectric P(VDF-TrFE) remnant polarization, and a mechanism is proposed for switching the mobility of the carriers by the ferroelectric remnant polarization. Upon exposure to the same input sound pressure, the measured output performance of the stretchable NG with a thin polydimethylsiloxane stretchable rubber template is up to 30 times that of a normal NG with a plastic substrate. Upon exposure to an air flow at the same speed, the measured output voltage from the stretchable NG is about 8 times larger than that of the normal NG.

Reduced graphene oxide field-effect transistor for label-free femtomolar protein detection.

We report reduced graphene oxide field effect transistor (R-GO FET) biosensor for label-free ultrasensitive detection of a prostate cancer biomarker, prostate specific antigen/α1-antichymotrypsin (PSA-ACT) complex. The R-GO channel in the device was formed by reduction of graphene oxide nanosheets networked by a self-assembly process. Immunoreaction of PSA-ACT complexes with PSA monoclonal antibodies on the R-GO channel surface caused a linear response in the shift of the gate voltage, V(g,min), where the minimum conductivity occurs. The R-GO FET can detect protein-protein interactions down to femtomolar level with a dynamic range over 6-orders of magnitude in the V(g,min) shift as a sensitivity parameter. High association constants of 3.2 nM(-1) and 4.2 nM(-1) were obtained for the pH 6.2 and pH 7.4 analyte solutions, respectively. The R-GO FET biosensor showed a high specificity to other cancer biomarker in the phosphate buffered saline solutions as well as in the human serum.

Organic electrochemical transistor based immunosensor for prostate specific antigen (PSA) detection using gold nanoparticles for signal amplification

We demonstrated a highly sensitive organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) based immunosensor with a low detection limit for prostate specific antigen/alpha1-antichymotrypsin (PSA-ACT) complex. The poly(styrenesulfonate) doped poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT:PSS) based OECT with secondary antibody conjugated gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) provided a detection limit of the PSA-ACT complex as low as 1pg/ml, as well as improved sensitivity and a dynamic range, due to the role of AuNPs in the signal amplification. The sensor performances were particularly improved in the lower concentration range where the detection is clinically important for the preoperative diagnosis and screening of prostate cancer. This result shows that the OECT-based immunosensor can be used as a transducer platform acceptable to the point-of-care (POC) diagnostic systems and demonstrates adaptability of organic electronics to clinical applications.

Ultrahigh Responsivity in Graphene–ZnO Nanorod Hybrid UV Photodetector

Ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors based on ZnO nanostructure/graphene (Gr) hybrid-channel field-effect transistors (FETs) are investigated under illumination at various incident photon intensities and wavelengths. The time-dependent behaviors of hybrid-channel FETs reveal a high sensitivity and selectivity toward the near-UV region at the wavelength of 365 nm. The devices can operate at low voltage and show excellent selectivity, high responsivity (RI ), and high photoconductive gain (G). The change in the transfer characteristics of hybrid-channel FETs under UV light illumination allows to detect both photovoltage and photocurrent. The shift of the Dirac point (V Dirac ) observed during UV exposure leads to a clearer explanation of the response mechanism and carrier transport properties of Gr, and this phenomenon permits the calculation of electron concentration per UV power density transferred from ZnO nanorods and ZnO nanoparticles to Gr, which is 9 × 10(10) and 4 × 10(10) per mW, respectively. The maximum values of RI and G infer from the fitted curves of RI and G versus UV intensity are 3 × 10(5) A W(-1) and 10(6) , respectively. Therefore, the hybrid-channel FETs studied herein can be used as UV sensing devices with high performance and low power consumption, opening up new opportunities for future optoelectronic devices.